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In New York, Indian Mangoes Remain Elusive

By Shivani Vora June 4, 2012 12:43 amJune 4, 2012 12:43 am

Prashanth Vishwanathan for The New York TimesShopkeepers sell mangoes at the Crawford Market in Mumbai, Maharashtra, May 21, 2012.

As a Bombay boy, my husband, Mahir, waited in anticipation every year for the start of mango season. Since the prized Alphonso (also known as hapus) was around only from late March to early June, he used to savor five or six a day to get his fill.

But when he moved to the United States for boarding school, he was devastated to learn about the United States ban on importing mangoes from India because of a pest that the seed of the mangoes harbored. The versions of his beloved fruit came from Mexico and Central America — versions that were good, he said, but not in same league when it came to the sweetness and juiciness of the ones from his childhood.

When the United States finally approved low-level irradiation of the produce and lifted the ban on Indian mangoes in 2006, he, along with everyone else I know who had experienced the pleasures of an Alphonso, was elated. “What America will be getting is the King of Fruit, Indian masterpieces that are burnished like jewels, oozing sweet, complex flavors acquired after two millenniums of painstaking grafting,” the cookbook writer Madhur Jaffrey wrote in The New York Times. “I can just see them arriving at the ports: hundreds of wide baskets lined with straw, the mangoes nestling in the center like eggs lolling in their nests,” she said.

But their stateside debut has been less than spectacular. Prices were as high as $7 for one mango, compared with $1 for those coming from countries south of the United States, and the quality was subpar. According to Nigel Chaudhry, the manager of the specialty food store Kalustyan’s, which is in Manhattan’s “Curry Hill” area, the fruit has often been boiled in hot water to ripen before being shipped from India, dulling the taste. “Since you can’t bring unripe fruit into the country, these mangoes were artificially ripened, which is what’s done when they come from countries like Mexico,” he said. “So we decided to stop carrying Indian mangoes after one year because the price was not worth it.”

Patrick McCarthyIndian Mangoes on sale at a shop in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City.

In fact, despite all the excitement exhibited when imports were allowed, getting Indian mangoes anywhere in the New York City area isn’t so easy. India Ink called more than a dozen Indian grocery stores in areas with heavy South Asian populations, including Jackson Heights and Flushing in Queens, Edison in New Jersey and Hicksville in Long Island, and could find only a handful of places that actually sold the fruit. Many stopped stocking them after a few years for the same reasons as Kalustyan’s and reported poor sales.

This year has been especially challenging because hotter weather arrived earlier in India and the mango season there has been truncated, which means shipments are few and far between as well as pricey. And since the varieties from Mexico like Ataulfo, Haden and Tommy Atkins have been exceptionally delicious, with a sweet aroma and an even sweeter taste, most grocery stores are carrying those instead.

Still, for those who must have the Alphonso, here is where to go:

Patel Brothers, Parsippany, New Jersey, (973) 299-9913, $38 a case for 10. Various Patel Brothers in the New York metropolitan area might sell Alphonsos. Visit patelbros.com for more locations.

Jumuna, 1225 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York, (718) 783-3977, $42 a case of 10. First lot this year arrived this week.

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This report on India from the journalists of The New York Times and a pool of talented writers in India and beyond provides unbiased, authoritative reporting on the country and its place in the world. India Ink also strives to be a virtual meeting point for discussion of this complex, fast-changing democracy – its politics, economy, culture and everyday life.